Team effort on Loop 610 busway a nod to new thinking

1of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

2of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

3of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

4of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

5of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

6of10Pylons for the busway and portions of the lanes have been visible for months along Loop 610, seen here on Oct. 29, 2018.Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

7of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

8of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

9of10Crews will extend the Loop 610 busway overpass parallel to the freeway, to two center lanes along the loop, shown May 23. The project will eventually link Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak, where dedicated bus lanes are being built.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

10of10Crews have made an opening, shown on May 23, in Loop 610 for the 610 busway that will connect Metro's Northwest Transit Center to Post Oak.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Uptown’s bet on buses is getting a lift from TxDOT in a first-of-its-kind venture that has state highway dollars going to a mass transit project along one of Houston’s most clogged freeways.

Come next year, buses traveling in their own lanes will ascend to the middle of the West Loop 610 for traffic-light trips between Post Oak and Metro’s Northwest Transit Center via a busway that will swing over the southbound freeway and then parallel to it.

Making all the pieces fit along what by many measures is the busiest freeway segment in the state has taken some engineering creativity, as well as a change in policy for the Texas Department of Transportation that many critics say remains too focused on being the “highway department” in a Houston area that is increasingly urbanizing.

“It is a tremendous recognition of how mobility in this region is changing,” said Tom Lambert, CEO of Metropolitan Transit Authority.

The $58 million project, which is becoming more visible along the Loop by the day, adds two lanes in each direction specifically for buses. Though other projects around Houston have benefited buses in the past three decades, such as the Katy Managed Lanes along Interstate 10, this will be the first Houston-area transit-only project using highway money since TxDOT was created in 1991 by merging the aviation and highway departments with the Texas Motor Vehicle Commission.

The only comparable project in Houston is the original HOV lanes along Interstate 45 — built with federal funds as an experiment —which were open only to vanpools and buses for the first six months. Local officials eventually opened them to carpools with four or more occupants in April 1985, and gradually reduced the occupancy rules to two people per car by November 1986, to move as many vehicles as possible from the general use lanes into the HOV. Starting in 2012, solo drivers were allowed into the lanes and charged a toll.

For the new busway, the state chipped in $25 million, approved by the Texas Transportation Commission in 2014. Because it runs along Loop 610, TxDOT is overseeing the project. Construction started early last year.

The project threads two bus-only lanes from where Post Oak crosses the southbound Loop 610 frontage road up to the center of the freeway. To accommodate the lanes, workers punched a hole in the freeway earlier this year and now are working in the center of the freeway to ready supports for the busway’s eventual sweep over the southbound lanes and onto its own overpass parallel to the freeway.

Divers slowly are seeing the busway come into focus.

“I think people are putting the pieces together,” said Frank Leong, area engineer for TxDOT’s West Harris office.

Later this summer, crews will close southbound traffic so they can hang overpass beams across the freeway. Typically, these total closures happen on weekends when traffic is lighter.

Related Stories

He said officials expect to open the lanes in the first quarter of 2020, around the same time as the rest of the broader bus lane project. Connecting work being done north and south of the TxDOT project will create a seamless ride from Bellaire to north of Interstate 10. Metro will pick up the busway at North Post Oak and take it to the transit center.

The bulk of the bus work is south along Post Oak where the Uptown Houston Management District, in its capacity as a tax increment reinvestment zone, is building dedicated bus lanes to provide faster transit service along the street.

It has been a controversial project, with deep opposition from some Uptown businesses and residents at nearly every turn, from its initial inclusion in regional transportation plans by the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Transportation Policy Council, to the Texas Transportation Commission approval of the funds — with the caveat the project could not be built to easily convert to rail — to Metro’s purchase of the 14 60-foot buses.

At the same time, supporters have pointed to it as a model for how agencies can work together to improve traffic for everyone. Even solo drivers benefit, backers said, because the buses are out of the general traffic lanes. Moreover, they say, more appealing bus service could convert some drivers into bus riders by making it more convenient.

“The main motivation is to help people do it because it is 20 minutes faster than driving,” said Kyle Shelton, director of strategic partnerships at Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

The fact local and TxDOT officials worked together demonstrates that everyone is willing to contribute when projects look promising, said Shelton, who has researched the connection between political decision-making and transportation development.

Still, he cautioned supporters and critics to not over-analyze this one project.

“I think we need to have a perspective where this only works in a bigger system,” Shelton said, noting that the bus lanes between the Post Oak transit centers only work if people can easily access buses and trains or parking where they can hop on buses and trains.

As a result, he said expectations should be tempered.

“I do not think it is a solution to say ‘This has not been a complete success so going forward we can never do it again,’” Shelton said“… At the same time, it alone is not going to solve congestion on Loop 610. There are still tens of thousands of vehicles going through there every hour.”